OCR A-Level Psychology H567
Research Methods and Techniques
Planning and Conducting Research
Data Recording, Analysis and Presentation
Report Writing and Scientific Communication
Practical Activities and the Nature of Science
Mathematical Requirements for Research Methods
Studying and Evaluating the Core Studies: The Common Framework
Core Studies: Social Area
Core Studies: Cognitive Area
Core Studies: Developmental Area
Core Studies: Biological Area
Core Studies: Individual Differences Area
Areas and Perspectives in Psychology
Debates in Psychology
Practical Applications of Psychology
Issues in Mental Health
Child PsychologyApplied option
Criminal PsychologyApplied option
Environmental PsychologyApplied option
Sport and Exercise PsychologyApplied option
Methodological Issues and Debates Running Through Applied Psychology
Issues in Mental Health
Szasz (2011) the myth of mental illness: mental illness as a metaphor
- 2 things to know
- Component 03
Overview
Recall questions on the nature and purpose of Szasz's 2011 article The myth of mental illness: 50 years later, how genuine diseases and mental disorders are identified, mental illness as a metaphor, problems in living, and the practices he wants abolished.
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
Which two psychiatric practices does he argue should be abolished?
Questions from this subtopic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
What kind of work is this, and why does that matter?
Model answer
It is a theoretical review article rather than an empirical study, arguing a case through conceptual, historical and legal analysis, so it collects no data and produces no statistics.
- 2
What was Szasz's purpose in writing it?
Model answer
To restate and defend, fifty years after his original claim, the argument that mental illness is a metaphor rather than a literal disease, and to ask why psychiatry had not changed.
- 3
On what basis does Szasz say a genuine disease must be identified?
Model answer
On demonstrable physical abnormality in the body's cells, tissues or organs, established by objective bodily signs rather than by what a person says or does.
- 4
How are mental disorders identified instead?
Model answer
They are identified from a person's behaviour and speech judged against social expectations, with no bodily lesion required at any point.
- 5
What does Szasz say happens once a physical cause for a condition is discovered?
Model answer
The condition is reclassified as a neurological disease and passes out of psychiatry altogether, as happened with the psychiatric symptoms produced by syphilis.
- 6
What term does he prefer for the difficulties psychiatry treats?
Model answer
He calls them problems in living rather than diseases.
Other ways to work this
The same content, four other ways.
What is inside Levo
Six ways to work the same material.
Every question in Issues in Mental Health, on a schedule.
Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.
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